


Hurt's Hopeful Plunder

by DarlaBlack



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, First Time, Post-Episode: s06e12 One Son, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 10:40:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14893082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlaBlack/pseuds/DarlaBlack
Summary: Mulder and Scully work through some of that season six baggage.





	Hurt's Hopeful Plunder

_+_

Standing there in the  _Lone Gunman_ ’s office, staring her down in that black turtleneck and wounded expression, he knew he was wrong. Even the gunmen knew he was wrong, giving him side-eyes like that. Byers was squirming. Of course it was goddamned personal.

Yet he couldn’t stop himself from saying what he did, from lashing out like a cornered animal. All four of them stood there looking at him like some stubborn asshole. Well, he  _was_  a stubborn asshole. If she were right, it would mean another part of his past had been poisoned. It would mean he’d been wrong again about whom to trust. It would mean he’d defended, to Scully’s face, someone who had hurt her, medically raped her, made her sick, stolen and killed her future children. It was too much.

It was easier to shove her away than to face the failures of his own judgment, so that’s what he did.

He was one sorry son of a bitch, doing the only thing he knew how to do.

_+_

Scully armored herself in black after she left Fort Marlene, fortified herself against the fact that as soon as there was someone else,  _anyone_  else, who would listen to him, pat his arm and call him  _Fox_  in some sultry voice, he shoved her aside. She wouldn’t let herself break over him, though, not this time. She would armor-up, tell him the ugly truth, and defend his cause to her last breath, as always. He was still her partner, still her friend—even if he didn’t choose her. Even if he didn’t love her.

“Sir, I wouldn’t bet against him,” she’d told Kersh, after listening to his talk about “sleeping with the enemy” and trying not to retch.  _Steel and ice_ , she told herself.  _Steel and ice_.

It got her through the meeting, got her through the long hallway where he called after her and she ignored him; it got her home, where she could strip that armor and fall, heartsick, into bed.

She told herself not to do it. The better, more rational Scully screamed that she was stronger than her self-destructive impulses and that the two of them would be fine, that she could go on with a heart half-ripped from her chest as long as she donned the right suit and gave herself enough steely pep talks. This would only make things worse. Dana Scully was a strong woman, but she held a weakness and a secret. Pushed to the edge, now, she couldn’t stop herself from the shameful indulgence: she’d snagged his sweaty Knicks t-shirt after his basketball game, and now she pulled it over her head. It fell to mid-thigh and drooped at the cut-off sleeves, but it felt soft against her naked skin and smelled like him. If she closed her eyes and held still, she could pretend he was there with her in the room.

She turned her phone off, turned her lights off, and buried herself under pillows and blankets. She tucked her nose against the scent of him in the dark, hoping it would be enough. She wouldn’t let herself cry, wouldn’t touch herself (probably), but she would let herself imagine how things could have been different if he’d wanted her.  _You can have this_ , she told herself,  _but only this once_. Tomorrow, she would wash the shirt and find a way to slip it back amongst his things.

But of course, even that was too much to ask. Someone was pounding on her door.

“Scully!”

Him.

She whimpered and dislodged herself from the blankets to pull on her robe. “Yeah, just a second,” she called. She tightened the belt around her middle, checking that the pilfered shirt was covered, and walked to the door.

_+_

It wasn’t like him, but he’d downed two shots of whiskey at a bar around the corner before trekking up the steps of her apartment. He wasn’t drunk, but he felt braver. Strong enough to face the crow he knew he needed to eat.

She opened the door in her robe, hair already uncoiffed, makeup smudged.

“Scully, it’s 11 a.m.” he said.

“So?”

He opened his mouth, said nothing.

She was just looking at him, brow furrowed.

“Can I come in?” He asked.

She sighed and turned toward her living room. Mulder closed the door behind him before tossing his coat across a chair and following her, his heart already beating fast. They sat on the couch, knees angled at each other, but Scully’s arms were crossed over her chest and she was staring at the empty coffee table.

“Scully…” he began. Of course she wasn’t making it easy. “You know I went to see Diana after you showed me what you’d found.” Her face was like stone. “I didn’t find any evidence there at her apartment.” The stone wavered, didn’t crack. “But I think you’re right.”

Finally, she looked up at him. “About what?”

“About Diana, and the work she was doing.”

There was a long moment before either of them spoke. The look on Scully’s face was pained, as if the conversation physically hurt her. “But you were going to go with her anyway. To El Rico.”

“Scully, we were coming to get  _you_.” He wouldn’t have gone anywhere without her, but the look on Scully’s face told him she didn’t quite believe him. Or that maybe he was answering the wrong unspoken objection. Shit.

“What did you find in her apartment, Mulder? Was she waiting for you?” Scully was animated now, and had stood up to pace. “Did she say she was doing it all for you? Murdering women and stealing their babies all around the globe so she and a handful of old men could be free? Would you have joined them so easily?” Her arms, protective, crossed in front of her chest. “Did you even think to talk to me about it first? Or did she help you decide?” That last question was loaded with heavy meaning.

Mulder could see the sense of betrayal in her eyes. Hurt rose off her like steam. “I…” His impulse was toward defensiveness, but he found that he had none left in him now. He was stung by how clearly she saw what he couldn’t, ashamed at how quickly he’d been ready to give up, when of course she would have talked him out of it. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought it was the only thing that could save us—save you.” Jesus, he was a disaster. 

He thought, perhaps, that this fuckup might be irrevocable. Here was this shining light, offering him nothing but truth and honesty even when it hurt, forever defending what was right, spending the best years of her life in the muck and monsters with him—but all he seemed able to do was walk deeper into the shadows, away from her. The problem was that Dana Scully made him strong enough to fight back—only sometimes, in his confusion, he fought back against the wrong things.

She sat down again on the couch, farther from him this time. She stared at her fingers, which were folded in her lap. “Do you want to be with her?” Scully asked, her voice so low he could hardly hear.

He thought for a moment. Part of him did, maybe–the part that hated himself and thought he deserved whatever misery Diana had to offer up. But that part had always been prone lies and terrible self-destruction. What his heart wanted was right here, glowing in a rumpled bathrobe and bare feet, but bruised by his miserable tendencies. “No,” he said.

“Do you love her?” Impossibly, quieter. Still, she didn’t look at him.

“No, Scully. I told you, I—“ but he stopped short, unwilling to push too hard, to fuck this up even further. Her eyes had flown up to meet his.

“You what?”

He gnawed his lower lip for a moment, not sure how to answer. Finally, he decided on the truth. She deserved the truth. “I wasn’t  _that_  out-of-it when you rescued me from that boat, Scully. I don’t deserve you, not even a little bit, but I do love you.”

Her eyes were locked on him, inscrutable. “Why?” she asked.

“Why?” Did she really need to ask? By the doubtful way she was looking at him, apparently she did. “Because you make me the best version of myself,” he said. “Because you make me want to care whether I live or die. Because you don’t take any of my bullshit. Because you fall asleep on stakeouts. Because I’ve seen you pull the intestines out of a corpse and eat spaghetti in the same day. Because your laugh is the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Because you shot me, knowing it would save me. Because I would be an idiot not to.”

A smile was tugging at her lips and she was trying to bite it back.

“Should I keep going?” He asked.

She’d turned to him, her cheeks pinking, and the top of her robe slipped open just a bit.

“And I love you, Scully, because I think you’re wearing my shirt.”

_+_

Scully’s face went redder still, and she was suddenly embarrassed to look at him, despite his declarations of love. She pulled the robe tighter around her first, and then, thinking better of it and knowing she’d be caught, let it go. The look in Mulder’s eyes was heartstopping—amusement and satisfaction, so so much love, and if she weren’t mistaken, the smallest dash of lust.

“Let me see that,” he said, reaching to pull the top of her robe open. The Knicks logo was plain to see. It was his shirt, alright. “Scully?” His eyebrows raised.

“I, um,” she cleared her throat. “I took your shirt.”

There was unmistakable mischief in the smile that crept onto his face. “Why?”

She gave him a hard glare. He was going to make her confess everything. “Because it… because I wanted to feel closer to you. Because I thought I’d never…” she sighed.

“What?”

She was fumbling at the belt now. Fidgeting. “I thought I’d never be close to you… physically. I just wanted to feel what it was like. Just once. I was going to give it back.” Her self-consciousness made it hard to look at him, but he nudged closer and brushed her cheek with a finger until she made eye contact. Her heart hammered against her chest, and her whole body tingled.

“Scully,” he said. “Is that what you want? To be close?”

Her eyes felt all-of-a-sudden wet with tears.  _Yes!_  she wanted to scream. She wanted to hurl herself against him and devour him whole. She wanted to claim him as hers with her legs wrapped around him and hold him against her forever. Instead she just nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Yeah,” a whisper.

He nodded, too, and reached for the belt at her waist. “Can I see?”

She loosened the tie and let the robe fall off her shoulders to pool around her hips on the couch. She wore only underwear beneath the t-shirt, and the cool air of the room tightened her nipples. She heard an involuntary sound escape Mulder’s throat. He ran a single finger along the hem at her thigh, and it was enough to send another flush through her body, a quickening of heart and breath.

“It looks good on you.”

God, the sound of his voice. It was no mere dash of lust on his face now; he was burning with it. Those eyes, that nimble digit above her knee, his lower lip, wet and reddened from sucking it between his teeth—she was wet already. Did he have any idea? All he’d done was look at her.

She reached her own hand out and lightly touched his wrist, let her fingers tease the smallish hairs there until she saw goosebumps raise on his forearm. It was a touch of permission—an invitation.

Their eyes met over the crackling tension in the room, and she found there open want, his love so plain in those haunted eyes. She couldn’t help but reach out and touch his face, fingers against his temples, then his jaw. They were both laid bare in their confessions: she in her plundered garment, he in his confused adoration. She tilted her chin in another small gesture of encouragement and he accepted her proffered token. He slanted toward her and dipped his head, catching her mouth with his own in a gentle graze, then another, then another that was neither gentle nor merely a graze. She opened to him and felt his tongue against her lip. She met it with hers and soon the kiss was a maelstrom of teeth and lips and tongues and desperate need. His hands came up to frame her face and hold her to him.

Every heartbeat trembled open a new flood of hunger, made the distance between them feel far too far, though it was merely inches.

“Mulder,” she said, releasing his lips, but not his hair from her fingers.

“Mmm,” he kissed her cheekbone, just below her eye, then again on her temple.

She stood, then, leaving her robe on the couch, and he scraped his eyes from her tousled hair to her naked toes. She felt tiny in his t-shirt but also loved and wanton under his gaze. She tugged at his tie—he was still dressed in his suit, ridiculously juxtaposed with her state of undress.

“Come with me.”

_+_

Mulder followed unhesitatingly as she padded into her darkened bedroom, though he could not resist reaching out a hand to curl around her waist as she walked, hitching the hem of the shirt dangerously close to the curve of her ass. She tossed a knowing look over her shoulder that almost made him stumble against her.

In the bedroom, she pushed him to sit on the rumpled bed and began working at his tie, then his buttons. His fingers grazed the backs of her thighs as she worked, circling the tender skin there. He was being so patient. She stripped him to white cotton and stood between his knees. His fingers travelled up up up beneath the shirt, over her rounded, lace-covered bottom and north to her shoulders. In this position, she had to bend her forehead to touch his. Bowed and contiguous, the pair fastened their eyes, and their breaths comingled against each other’s lips. They forged together a purr of electricity and wet heat that cycled like an erotic battery. It held and held its sweet intensity until the tension was too great, and they broke it together with crushing lips and roaming, tugging hands. Scully pulled at his remaining clothes until they were matched in one garment each, both belonging to him.

Mulder drew her down beside him on the bed where their bodies pressed flush together at last. His fingers were in her hair, small kisses on her nose and chin. “Is this what you wanted, Scully?” He whispered. “This closeness?”

She kissed his mouth, hands pressing and sliding down his abdomen to hook the edge of his boxers. “Yes,” she said against his lips. “This and more.”

She pushed the fabric down until he could kick the boxers free, and then he was draped naked on the comforter for her to touch. She curled her fingers around his erection, smooth and hard against her palm, and he groaned into her temple.

“I want  _you_ , Mulder. All of you. Always.”

He was slipping the t-shirt, at last, over her head until they were equally bared, equally ablaze with lust. “Likewise,” he said.

He dipped hands and mouth to marvel at her breasts and she arched into his touch. Her knee rose to his hip, bringing her center hot against him. They both groaned at this, could not help their little thrusts against each other to deepen the pressure.  _More more more_ , both of their bodies demanded, and they obliged.

His fingers found that place where they were not-quite joined and dipped into such heated slip that he felt momentarily woozy. “Jeeesus,” he murmured, as one finger buried to the hilt and curled itself inside her.

Scully had no words, only moans and involuntary bucks against him, then something like “Muhhh” that wanted to be his name. When she could no longer bear it, she took him in her hand and rolled him atop her. She wanted to watch him as he entered her. Wanted to claim him as he claimed her.

“Please now,” she said. He kissed her one more time, hard and hot and wet, before letting her guide him into her while they watched each other’s faces in utter stunned worship.

She was filled with him to overflowing, pink-tipped, pixie-like below him. He was hopelessly home, found and held at last to her fixed point, as they drifted through space together. They moved and it was everything. He rocked into her, and she rose to meet him. They fit perfectly and came together with heart-melting cries of love.

_+_

Afterward, they watched each other across pillows, smiling stupidly like lovestruck adolescents.

“I never thought,” he said, shaking his head.

“I never thought,” she said.

Their fingers played games between them, teasing and tugging, a stroke of a thumb, pinch of an index.

“Mulder,” she said, after a moment.

“Hmm?”

“You know  _I_  care if you live or die, right? Regardless of whether you can muster up the concern?”

“Hmm.” His brow furrowed, then he nodded.

“So even if you sometimes can’t care for yourself… do it for me?” She squeezed his hand. “Because I love you too.”

He reached an arm around her waist to pull her to him, closing the gap between their bodies. Her cheek pressed at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, where she planted a kiss. 

“I’ll try,” he said.

“Good.”

 

—–

This story was written for tumblr's XF Porn Battle (@xfpornbattle):   
**PROMPT(s)** : Scully asking Mulder why he loves her. Post Triangle/all the Diana bullshit. Sexy, erotic, gentle smut  
**x2** (a twofer!): Mulder finds Scully wearing his Knicks jersey

 **End Note** : I chose this (main) prompt because I think it’s one of the absolute hardest to imagine, but something I desperately want to see. I know Mulder loves Scully, but when she is at her most emotionally vulnerable (especially in her weakness for him), he almost never shows it or opens up to her. See, for example,  _Tooms_ ,  _Syzygy_ ,  _Elegy_ ,  _Detour_ ,  _All Souls_ ,  _The Beginning_ ,  _One Son_ ,  _Three Words_  (ugh, it hurts),  _The Truth_ , and  _IWTB_. I blame Carter, of course.

 **my tumblr** : @spookydarlablack


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